An oil-by-rail project that could lower California gas prices and reduce the state’s reliance on foreign oil is facing increasing opposition over environmental concerns.

Tesoro Corp. has partnered with Savage Companies on plans to build an energy distribution terminal in Vancouver, Wash. The oil would be brought to the facility by rail and then shipped by tankers and barges to California refineries where it would be converted into gasoline.

Tesoro hopes to begin shipping up to 360,000 barrels of North American crude a day to the port by the middle of next year. The project, they say, would provide “a viable domestic alternative” to foreign supply options.

But a string of fiery rail crashes has some fearing that Tesoro’s project could cause more of the same.

A rail accident that occurred late last year in Casselton, N.D., forced residents to evacuate the town. Another July 2013 derailment in Quebec, Canada, spewed about 1.6 million gallons of crude which ignited a fire that killed 47 people.

“Those crashes have to do with non-qualifed tankers cars that don’t have enough reinforcement to haul the oil,” industry analyst Bob van der Valk said. “When they crash the bottom just falls apart.”

That has put pressure on the oil industry and regulators to improve the safety of oil shipments.

In February, Tesoro announced that it had begun replacing older cars in its tanker fleet with newer ones that are equipped with reinforced shields and relief devices. The upgrades to Tesoro’s rail car fleet will be completed before construction of the proposed Tesoro-Savage Energy Distribution Terminal would begin and before the terminal would start accepting crude oil deliveries, the company said.

“The safe design of rail cars in crude service is of paramount importance,” Keith Casey, Tesoro’s senior vice president of strategy and business development, said in a statement.

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Denny Larson, executive director for Global Community Monitor, a San Francisco-based group that trains and supports communities in the use of environmental monitoring tools, said the project doesn’t sound good.

“It sounds dangerous, it sounds dirty and it would create air pollution from increased rail traffic and barge traffic,” he said. “And it’s too risky to receive serious consideration given the growing concern about rail accidents.”

Byron Brodehl, who runs Best Buy Manufactured Homes in Vancouver, is a little more on the fence.

“There is always concern when you transport oil and those kinds of things by rail,” he said. “But you have to weigh the hazards against the economic benefits. Sometimes it’s tough to weigh those things out, but this doesn’t seem to be something that people on the street are talking about.”

Last year more than 51 percent of California’s oil supplies came from foreign sources, according to the California Energy Commission. That was up from 34.1 percent a decade earlier and well above 6 percent in 1993.

On the plus side, domestic oil production is booming, and oil produced in the U.S. would cost up to 25 percent less than some of the foreign brands.

But getting it to California is another matter.

Other states have easier access to the cheaper crude coming out of North Dakota and Canada, but California has been forced to buy more of the expensive crude because fewer pipelines connect the state to the rest of the nation.

Van der Valk supports the oil-by-rail plan — both logistically and as a means of reducing price volatility.

“This oil is like water behind a dam,” he said. “It has to go somewhere, it has to be refined. Right now we have to deal with countries that are hostile to us. But if we could totally shut off shipments from the Middle East and Africa ... nothing would happen to the price of gas.”

One thing is certain: California gas prices are consistently among the highest in the nation.

On Tuesday, the state’s average price for a gallon of regular unleaded was $4.04. That was topped only by Hawaii at $4.34 a gallon and Alaska at $4.15 a gallon.

South Carolina, by contrast, had the lowest price — $3.30 a gallon.

So would the Tesoro project really result in lower prices at the pump?

“I think there is more of a chance that motorists would see a drop in prices as opposed to it going up,” said Patrick DeHann, a senior petroleum analyst with GasBuddy.com. “I think the Tesoro project is a strong business plan that would allow California to access some of that cheaper crude from the Bakken oil reserves in North Dakota and from Alberta, Canada. The only thing I see in the way of this are the environmental concerns. But from what I’ve seen there is a lot that can be done to mitigate those concerns.”

The Vancouver City Council recently voted against the project and it has been to delayed until mid-2015 while Tesoro awaits word from the state on whether another environmental impact report is needed.